


Cabernet Sauvignon

by lobsterkaijin



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lobsterkaijin/pseuds/lobsterkaijin
Summary: Doflamingo sees himself as a god, but what is a god to a non-believer?





	Cabernet Sauvignon

“Oh, Your Highness, you’re so smart! Tell us again how you discovered Riku’s evil scheme!” A woman curled up at the king’s side beamed up at him with shining white teeth. Her red fingernails were so long they dug just a little too deep for his liking. Two others, one at his feet and one leaning over the plush loveseat, wore equally long nails that carded through his hair and traced along his leg. They hadn’t stopped smiling and laughing once they were invited to lavish in His Highness’ company. Doflamingo grinned at the brood of vipers wrapped around him.

“Justice will always hunt down injustice! Justice will always dominate injustice! It was inevitable that the bastard Riku would fall, for his fate was sealed the day he thought it was okay to cut down his own people!”

The woman at his shoulder moved to massage him. She didn’t care to notice the slight flinch her touch elicited from the king. “Does that make you ‘justice,’ Your Highness?”

“Yes, Doffy, do you see yourself as just?” Another woman came to sit next to the king, though she left space between them. There was no smile on her face to return to the king’s wolfish greeting of “Hello, dearest Violet.” Her amber eyes burned when she looked up at him.

Doflamingo chuckles at her impudence. Ever the serpent beneath those pretty petals, huh? Before he answers, he turns to press a kiss to a stray hand  brushing along the shell of his ear from behind him. The owner doesn’t retract it, only giggles and offers more of herself to the king. He lets her go with a disinterested wave of his hand, only for hers to be replaced by the hand of the woman at his side. He ignores her pointed talon trailing down his chest, his attention focused more on his Officer, whose fingers have folded across her lap and squeezed together, whose patience has clearly run thin. Good things come to those who wait.

“Children who’ve never seen a day of peace in their lives and children who’ve never seen war can never share values. Those who lived under Riku’s regime didn’t know they being deceived, yet claimed to value truth and honesty from their king. When he showed his true colours, you all rejected him and his truth, because you didn’t know that the truth would be so awful! So much for the honesty of your king!”

When they laugh this time, though he laughs with them, a vein throbs above his right brow. Those women laugh like hyenas, and Violet’s expression and posture haven’t changed.

He continues. “In a fight between good and evil, the winner will be the one to guide the world into a new era. This poor country had been corrupted by King Riku’s heartlessness, and had been crying out for help. That is why I came here, to relieve the land and its people of the king’s cruelty! In vanquishing Riku, I did what was good, did I not? Then I _must_ be justice! _I_ won over Riku, _good_ won over evil, _justice_ won over injustice! Justice is determined by the one who comes out on top, after all!”

He’s cackling, spilling his wine on the woman by his feet, when a voice rises above the crowd and splits the music right down the middle, commanding the public’s attention, issuing a challenge to Doflamingo. “You’re wrong.”

A curtain of silence falls over the party-goers. The quiet is heavy, with tension thick enough to cut through the wine in Doflamingo’s vision, yet there is still red glossing over his eyes, _bright_ red. Red hands pointed right at him, red shorts swaying from side to side like clockwork in a strut that brings Doflamingo’s challenger to stand across the table from him.

Doflamingo’s eyes drag along the length of the one standing in front of him, from his feet to his head, consuming the stranger’s entire existence with the practiced ease of a drunkard. It’s a pleasant descent into the ocean of presence this one exudes, until he reaches the bottom of the barrel and finds his thirst furthest from quenched, and his eyes once again dart up and down, downing more and more glasses until once again the alcoholic heat returns to his gut, and his mind coagulates from the bloodlust.

The escort curled up by his side scoffs and remarks on the idiot being just so dense that he cannot read the situation he’s put himself in. Who gave the wench the right to speak? Then she should’ve expected the punishment that came from talking out of turn. Doflamingo slams her face into the table. Dense? No, this brat knows what he is doing. With one leg propped up on the table and his hands on his hips, he looks quite pleased with himself for stealing away everyone’s attention, except his eyes have not left the king alone since he crashed the party. The fool doesn’t care about anyone else’s attention, not when he has Doflamingo’s.

Enunciating each word like he’s tasting the sound of it and only allowing it to be heard if the flavour satisfies him, his challenger opens his mouth again to the astonishment of everyone but Doflamingo, who watches his words intently. “What is taught in children’s school books, where the boundaries of red tape lie, the blindfold of ignorance tied over mankind’s eyes, that is history, and it is _history_ that is determined by the winner! Those who have power decide what story to tell!”

Unflinching, the challenger’s grin remains plastered to his face as Doflamingo’s shoulders were wracked by maniacal laughter, thoughts swimming in the promise of violence. What arrogance! Who the hell does this brat think he is? As if to answer the unspoken question, the other winks at him, and pressure builds behind Doflamingo’s eyes. Giving him a slight taste of what is to come, Doflamingo raises a finger. String slices the air. A single hair falls from the other’s pompadour, yet he is unwavering, not to be phased by the show of power, and regards the king with a cocked brow. A second vein grows agitated along Doflamingo’s forehead, branching out. He stares down the stranger, but the other is unyielding, with those brilliant and glittering eyes refusing to leave Doflamingo’s, following his every move, a quiet but forceful coercing of the king to play this game.

“It is in arrogance that man attempts to redefine justice, when justice is divine, it is fate, it is not for man to rewrite!” His hand points to the sky. “It is the balance of a man’s rights and wrongs, his happiness and unhappiness, his light and dark, his just desserts and righteous comeuppance!”

It’s not just his hands that move. At some point, he ended up on top of the table Sugar was eating at, and she pulls her bowl close to her chest with a huff, though there is none of the usual malice in her eyes. The way she looks up at him is almost shy, her eyes turned molten. Doflamingo’s jaw relaxes at the sight of her.

“Justice is a scale that weighs all a man’s virtues and sins and finds them equal!” From table to table he steps, elegant yet bombastic, invigorated with the energy of eyes on him, of Doflamingo’s eyes on him. In turn, this energy electrifies the audience. His hands gesticulate wildly left and right. “That is truly right and fair, that no man shall ever possess more happiness than any other!”

Violet leans forward to sit at the edge of her seat, enthralled with the stranger’s grandstanding. It’s not just her heart that’s been captured. The crowd is eating out of the palm of his hand, drinking in his words like they needed it more than water, and this brat is living for the attention, not that he has to do much to garner it. “Justice is equality!”

The veins in Doflamingo’s forehead are fully visible, and if anyone else had been grinding their teeth half  as hard as he, they’d have a mouth full of powder.

“Isn’t he afraid of the Donquixote name? He has some nerve!” Trebol was only now tuning in to what was going on around him as he returned from the snack bar with about as much haste as molasses. The bumbling fool slips and sloshes about while balancing a precarious plate on his staff arm, unable to put it down for a second. It’s pressing on all the wrong nerves to watch him twist around the brat’s side on a stream of mucus. “Hey, hey, can I fight him Doffy, can I?” Snot runs down into his mouth, ruining any possible intimidation he could’ve had.

The punk brat regards the mucus with interest, poking at it then retracting a gloved hand away to watch the stickiness pull apart in awe. There’s not a hint of disgust in his face when he smiles at Trebol and bids him hello. This flusters Trebol and brings to his face an expression that Doflamingo has not seen before. The sweet gesture would’ve looked fake if the performance hadn’t been so overwhelmingly genuine. That’s _three_. Doflamingo rises to a stand. It appears he has been too merciful.

He speaks through clenched teeth. “Stand down, Trebol.”

The older man makes a noise of complaint that Doflamingo does not care to hear. From behind Trebol, Diamante’s lanky arm pulls him back to remind him of the consequences of disobeying the young master. There will be no more out of him if he knows what’s good for him.

“Equality, you say?” Doflamingo turns back to the uninvited guest.

He nods, beaming. “Yes sir, justice is an innate law of the universe!”

“Oh, is that so?”

Doflamingo licks his lips. Patience is agony, his hunger is insatiable. One glass, two, ten, he’d lost count of the times he swallowed the lump in his throat whenever the other’s eyes met with his. It is only now however that he understands the spell that has been cast on him. It’s as with Sugar, and Violet, and Trebol. No matter how much wine he poisoned himself with, it would not be as sweet a death as the primal bloodthirst erupting at the blaze in those starry eyes. Infection spreads inside out; the satisfaction he gets from staring down this insignificant whelp is corrosive. A hole has been burnt through his gut, and now the only thing he feels like filling it with is standing right in front of him. He wants it, which meant it needs to be disposed of.

But he is not done. The gluttonous worm will not rest until it has consumed everything.

“Justice is an innate law of the universe, and yet the judicial procedure has been tainted as of late. I, Shindou Masaomi of Wano Country, intend to uphold the purity of this law and its system by grasping the chain with my own two hands and dancing with it until the scale breaks! With this promise, I seek to embolden the righteous and damn those who ever thought they could unjustly tip the scale in their favour!”

He holds out a gloved hand to Doflamingo and grins. “So, Donquixote Doflamingo, will you dance with me?”

Doflamingo stares at that hand, contemplates cutting it clean off. Then laughs, and laughs, and laughs. He laughs for what feels like eternity, until it starts to distort, twisting, tightening, melting into a funeral march. He laughs when the crowd begins to murmur. He laughs when those call girls become disturbed and slink away from him to put distance between them. He laughs when Violet places a tentative hand on his forearm, a concerned look on her face.

And then silence.

He kicks the table, sends it flying straight across the hall to the other side where it crashes into a crew of his business associates. As soon as his foot made connection, parts of the Donquixote family, party-goers, servants, chefs, musicians, all crumpled to the ground. The Elite Officers grumbled about the inconvenience of the young master using his Conqueror’s Haki, but Masaomi is not fazed, remaining standing taller than ever. The determination in his eyes has gone from a raging fire to a supernova.

This brings a predatory smile to Doflamingo’s face. He takes a hold of Masaomi’s hand. “I like your style.”

**Author's Note:**

> for the next part to this, click [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141288).


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